. >> we continue with david brooks of the, no times and historian michael beschloss. >> if you have a sense of your own rightness and you think politics is generally a competition between half truths, you're going to need the other people on the other side and value the similar later of tastes. you may disagree with the republican or democrat but you're still basically american and share the same culture and you know your side is half wrong. when you hae mentality of i'm half wrong and he's probably half right, it will be easier to come to an agreement. but if you have an eggotisticle at tiew 'tude of pim 100% right and he's 100% wrong, then it's hard to come to an agreement and i think we've had a failure of modesty about our own rightness and wrongness. >> we conclude with the "marks of genius" at the morgan library with assistant curator john mcquillen. >> i think it changes as we pass through the centuries from if an a chenet roman idea of genius being a sort of guardian spirit that everyone had, every man had his genius, every woman had her juno, to something more selective. 18th

we continue our conversation about politics and polarization with presidential historian michael beschloss who joins me from washington and in new york david brooks of the "new york times." welcome to you both. myel, wanted to start with you. we've just talked to senator manchin, congressman cooper. they're in the arena trying to make things work. how do you see this moment in historical comparison in terms of polarization? >> well, you know, jon, i think one way of looking at it is, if it were a perfect system, then the most polarized congress would be at the post polarized times of american history, like the run up to the civil war, perhaps in 1940 and 1941 when americans were struggling, whether we should go to war against hitler and the imperial japanese or not, and i hate to say it, but if you had to look at what was done in congress in those times compared to now, i think the congress of 2014 does not measure up very well. >> that's remarkable. so we were better off in -- was more productive legislature in the 1850s? >> well, they disagreed, but i think there was not such a habit of

i represent michael beschloss and frank mccourt, nathaniel philbrick, evan thomas, david shribman andrichard norton smith. c-span: and as a representative, what does someone like that do? >> guest: i do everything from finding places for speakers to speak, to negotiating the fees, to determining what kinds of topics they'll talk about in their speech. and then we do all the nitty-gritty logistics minute by minute. this is who's picking you up. this is where you're staying. and then the follow-up. c-span: and you've done this for 12 years. >> guest: yes. c-span: what has happened in 12 years -- what have you noticed happening about people's interest in hearing the live speech? >> guest: oh, i think it's increased, and it's because there are many, many more agencies like mine because the demand is much more. people love to hear the real person. they love to see them. they love to shake their hand. there's nothing like it. so i think that it's increased tremendously. c-span: and is there any way of giving us some idea of how large the average audience is for some of the speakers you send